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Xinhua News Grows in Western Countries, Gaining Acceptance?

Could Xinhua News, the information arm of the Chinese government, become the next worldwide source for news? Newsweek made some interesting points in favor of the organization, which has spread out from China, creating a 24-hour English speaking television station as well as buying office space in a Times Square building. The biggest competitive advantage Xinhua has over other competitors? Cost. It doesn’t have to worry about money, so while most news organizations cutback Xinhua grows.

“But the former ‘Red China News Agency’ doesn’t need to worry about the inconvenience of turning a profit,” wrote Newsweek writers Isaac Stone Fish and Tony Dokoupil. “As a result, it might do for news what China’s state-run factories have done for tawdry baubles and cheap clothes: take something that has become a commodity and foist it onto the world far more cheaply than anyone else can.”

And as for the clear bias in the reporting, well what news organization doesn’t have bias these days? “But to many the Chinese perspective now seems like just another ideological choice on the dial, an option as valid as Al-Jazeera, Fox News, or MSNBC,” wrote Fish and Dokoupil.